THE дал WORKS ОР SAMUEL JOHNSON. LL. D WITH AN ESSAY ON HIS LIFE AND GENIUS, BY ARTHUR MURPHY, ESQ. THIRD COMPLETE AMERICAN EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. I. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1856. AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND GENIUS or SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. require nothing but the truth. Nam nec historia debet egredi veritatem, et honeste factis veritas sufficit. This rule the present biographer promises shall guide his pen throughout the following nar rative. WHEN the works of a great writer, who has bequeathed to posterity a lasting legacy, are presented to the world, it is naturally expected, that some account of his life should accompany the edition. The reader wishes to know as much as possible of the author. The circumstances that It may be said, the death of Dr. Johnson kept attended him, the features of his private charac- the public mind in agitation beyond all former ter, his conversation, and the means by which example. No literary character ever excited so he rose to eminence, becomes the favourite ob- much attention; and, when the press has teemed jects of inquiry. Curiosity is excited; and the with anecdotes, apophthegms, essays, and publiadmirer of his works is eager to know his pri- cations of every kind, what occasion now for a vate opinions, his course of study, the partiou-new tract on the same threadbare subject? The larities of his conduct, and, above all, whether plain truth shall be the answer. The proprie he pursued the wisdom which he recommends, tors of Johnson's Works thought the life, which and practised the virtue which his writings in- they prefixed to their former edition, too unweildy spire. A principle of gratitude is awakened in for republication. The prodigious variety of foevery generous mind. For the entertainment reign matter, introduced into that performance, and instruction which genius and diligence have seemed to overload the memory of Dr. Johnson, provided for the world, men of refined and sensi- and in the account of his own life to leave him ble tempers are ready to pay their tribute of hardly visible. They wished to have a more praise, and even to form a posthumous friend- concise, and, for that reason, perhaps a more saship with the author. tisfactory account, such as may exhibit a just picture of the man, and keep him the principai figure in the foreground of his own picture. To comply with that request is the design o this essay, which the writer undertakes with a trembling hand. He has no discoveries, no se cret anecdotes, no occasional controversy, no sudden flashes of wit and humour, no private conversation, and no new facts to embellish his work. Every thing has been gleaned Dr. Johnson said of himself, "I am not ancandid nor severe: I sometimes say more than I mean, in jest, and people are apt to think me serious," The exercise of that privilege which is enjoyed by every man in society, has not been allowed to him. His fame has given importance even to trifles; and the zeal of his friends has brought every thing to light. What should be related, and what should not, has been published_without distinction. Dicenda tacenda locuti! Every thing that fell from him has been caught with eagerness by his admirers, who, as he says in one of his letters, have acted with the diligence of spies upon his conduct. To some of them the following lines, in Mallet's Poem, on verbal criticism, are not inapplicable: In reviewing the life of such a writer, there is, besides, a rule of justice to which the public have an undoubted claim. Fond admiration and partial friendship should not be suffered to represent his virtues with exaggeration; nor should malignity be allowed, under a specious disguise, to magnify mere defects, the usual failings of human nature, into vice or gross deformity. The lights and shades of the character should be given; and, if this be done with a strict regard to truth, a just estimate of Dr. Johnson will afford a lesson, perhaps as valuable as the moral doc trine that speaks with energy in every page of his works. The present writer enjoyed the conversation and friendship of that excellent man more than thirty years. He thought it an honour to be so connected, and to this hour he reflects on his loss with regret: but regret, he knows has secret bribes, by which the judgment may be influenced, and partial affection may be carried beyond the bounds of truth. In the present case, however, nothing needs to be disguised, and exaggerated praise is unnecessary. It is an observation of the younger Pliny, in his Epistle to his friend Tacitus, that history ought never to magnify matters of fact, because worthy actions *Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 465, 4to. edis "Such that grave bird in Northern seas is found, where he was not remarkable for diligence or regular application. Whatever he read, his tenacious memory made his own. In the fields with his school-fellows, he talked more to himself than with his companions. In 1725, when he was about sixteen years old, he went on a visit to his cousin Cornelius Ford, who detained After so many essays and volumes of Johnsoni-him for some months, and in the mean time asana, what remains for the present writer? Per-sisted him in the classics. The general direchaps, what has not been attempted; a short, yet full-a faithful, yet temperate, history of Dr. Johnson. "You tion for his studies, which he then received, he SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Litchfield, September 7, 1709, O. S.* His father Michael Johnson was a bookseller in that city; a man of large athletic make, and violent passions; wrong-headed, positive, and at times afflicted with a degree of melancholy, little short of madness. His mother was sister to Dr. Ford, a practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of PARSON FORD, the same who is represented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Conversation. In the life of Fenton, Johnson says, that “his abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise." Being chaplain to the Earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embassy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote. should go," said the witty peer, "if to your many vices you would add one more," Pray, my Lord, what is that?" "Hypocrisy, my dear Doctor." -Johnson had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the age of twenty-seven On Johnson's return from Cornelius Ford, or twenty-eight. Michael Johnson, the father, was chosen in the year 1718, under bailiff of Mr. Hunter, then master of the Free-school at Litchfield; and in the year 1725 he served the Litchfield, refused to receive him again on that At this distance of time, what his office of the senior bailiff. He had a brother of foundation. the name of Andrew, who, for some years, kept reasons were, it is vain to inquire; but to refuse the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers assistance to a lad of promising genius must be and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was pronounced harsh and illiberal. It did not, hownever thrown or conquered. Michael, the fa- ever stop the progress of the young student's ther, died December 1731, at the age of seventy-education. He was placed at another school, six; his mother at eighty-nine, of a gradual decay, in the year 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice. Johnson did not delight in talking of his relations. "There is little pleasure," he said to Mrs. Piozzi, "in relating the anecdotes of beggary." Johnson derived from his parents, or from an unwholesome nurse, the distemper called the king's evil. The jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch; and accordingly Mrs. Johnson presented her son, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient all the healing virtue in her power. He was afterwards cut for that scrophulous humour, and the under part of his face was seamed and disfigured by the operation. It is supposed that this disease deprived him of the sight of his left eye, and also impaired his hearing. At eight years old he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the Free-school in Litchfield, *This appears in a note to Johnson's Diary, prefixed to the first of his prayers. After the alteration of the style, he kept his birth-day on the 18th of September, and it is accordingly marked September, 7-18. at Stourbridge in Worcestershire, under the |